Another water-centric industry of Africa I would like to talk about is that of livestock and the people who keep them. In Africa “reduced access to clean water sources not only
impacts human welfare in urban and rural areas, it is also claiming wildlife
species, fragile ecosystems, and the communities that depend on them.” (Niang, 1219) I would
like to see whether or not more land based species (and people relying on them) are being affected as much
by the changes in the water table caused by climate change. I am keen to
discover if the land based industry is hit as hard as the marine based one in
terms of livestock in this blog and expand these effects further in the next
few blogs. Political human/animal conflicts will be touched upon too. Climate patterns change and animals have to
adapt accordingly such as moving away from their current habitats/territories. Animals
experience habitat loss due to increased greenhouse emissions which drives them
to encroach on more man made environments – the very environments that are
causing the increased emissions are the ones being encroached upon. (Niang, 1221) Animals
have to alter their breeding and feeding patterns in order to survive which
disrupts the food chain and evolutionary patterns. Some examples over the next
few weeks will be key to highlighting said issues. Humans have to adapt too - livestock owners need to implement measures which allow the animals they own to adapt or at least contribute to kick starting said adaptation. For example, moving herds to other less climatically effected areas can be a crucial move. Humans have the technology to somewhat predict climatic variations in certain regions whereas in general animals may take a bit longer/wait for the changes to occur before the adaptive change starts being made. There are conflicts that arise too between more top down technological adaptation approaches and more atrisnal farmers/owners, I will be interested to observe this relationship.
There are multiple stresses and strains put on livestock and
communities which support them when they interact with climate change. The
effect these stresses have on the vulnerability of livestock are extremely
significant. Some examples include but aren’t limited to degrading of
range land, water access variability increases, fragmentation of grazing zones, sedentarisation,
land tenure shifting from state to private and lack of potential diversity
within livelihoods. (Shamaille-Jammes, 2007; 746)
Stresses and strains can also be placed on humans associated with livestock and climatic fluctuations. In the Sahel for example, temperatures could be up to 5 degrees warmer by 2050. The troublesome erratic rainfall patterns and wet seasons will be further exacerbated by these projections. Since the food crisis in 2012, 33 million people are classified as food insecure in the Sahel alone. Desperate needs for grain and feed is forcing herders into other areas of pasture. This creates spatial conflicts between land owners and the herders.
Drought conditions in susceptible areas such as northern and
southern areas of Africa cause loss of livestock for farmers. Said regions are
predicted to become even drier with climatic changes. Adequate water sources to
supply these areas is therefore a concern – for example if we look at providing
water from boreholes, it is estimated that pumping said water will increase in
price by 23% by 2050 due to higher demands for water under drier conditions. (Niang, 1220)
There also needs to be attention paid towards drinking water provision for livestock too – although small scale compared with the use of water to create the animal feed as it can have a general impact on the resource use efficiency in hot environments such as Africa.
I want to stress - the problem is not necessarily a general trend of falling water/rainfall levels, it is more the increase on sporadic unpredictability of weather events which directly and indirectly impact water abundance and therefore livestock and their owners.
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